Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the way in which the Muslim community in France design an alternative future for mosques within the paradoxical context of laïcité. Through a person-centred ethnography, I intend to show how Muslim actors try to fashion themselves as French Muslims.

Paper long abstract:

Within various mosques in the suburbs of Paris, young Muslim actors are fighting not only the static management of mosques by the elders of the community who see these spaces solely as places of worship, but also the continuous state attempts to control mosques, imams and their discourse. Their utopian project consists of having mosques that "respond to the community needs, with committee members who represent the community and who engage positively in the French society." A project that is often described by the French political and media discourse either as 'communitauriste' or 'islamiste'. In this regard, the state's paradox of claiming neutrality while continuously defining the good/bad Muslim (Mamdani 2005) leads young Muslim actors to develop a "paradoxical utopia".

Drawing on twelve months of intensive fieldwork, this paper analyses the trajectory of Mourad in his process of mobilising the community to design an alternative future. After years of voluntary work as a young Tablighi member in a mosque located in the suburbs of Paris, Mourad became an expert in consulting, auditing and coaching mosques committee members‒as well as members of other Muslim based organisations. Today, against accusations of nurturing communitarianism and establishing an 'Islam in France', Mourad uses 'community organising' and the neoliberal model of the managerial enterprise in order to build an 'Islam of France'. Within the paradoxical context of laïcité, what Mourad fights against seems also his source of liberation.